


The art of espresso making and other recipes

by Ygern



Series: A DISQUISITION OF DOMESTICITY [3]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 22:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16273706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ygern/pseuds/Ygern
Summary: Hathaway and Lewis gravitate into each other's orbits and pretend not to notice.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The immediate sequel to Part 2, the prequel to Part 1.

Disembarking in England’s grey, chilly autumn torpedoed Robbie’s already dour mood. Long distance travel does nothing for the soul of any traveller; leaving them weary, cramped and exposed to the bacteria of a million fellow-sojourners of the skies and grimy airport lounges.

It did even less for Robbie who neither wanted to remain where he had been, nor looked forward to his destination. The slate-grey afternoon sky seemed the final blow, so stark in contrast to the recent glow of New Zealand’s burgeoning summer. But the refuge of home was not a welcoming prospect as his next action would be to pack his possessions into cardboard boxes and move out, leaving the place free of any traces of his short, and with hindsight, misjudged time as Laura’s partner. He had no plans on where to go, but go he must.

Then there was James. Robbie wanted to see his old work partner and friend about as much as he needed air, but as he approached the Customs terminal he found himself feeling strangely reluctant to face to face with the man who had unwittingly played a pivotal role in the disaster that had caused Robbie to be heading home prematurely and alone, tail between his legs. Whether Laura had been right or not about Robbie's suppressed feelings was one thing. That did not automatically translate into James being of the same humour. However, when Robbie saw a shorn fair head poking out above the crowd in the Arrivals Hall he felt a gladness stir inside him for the first time in weeks.

The lad was carrying another hand-made sign with LEWIS printed carefully across it, a silly time-worn private joke between the two of them that James had obviously felt was worth recycling. Robbie barked out a laugh that came out almost as a sob, which was fortunately swallowed by the din of the crowd. When James spotted him, his long face was suddenly transformed by a grin of delight with no hesitating glance as to Robbie’s unexplained newly-solo appearance.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, lad,” said Robbie shouldering his heavy overnight bag and wondering whether it would be appropriate to hug James like the hundreds of people around them were doing, pulling their friends and family into their arms. Instead he clutched the handle of his case and shuffled his feet.

James beamed at him and reached for the wheelie-suitcase and the backpack. “Welcome home, Robbie; it’s good to have you back. Gosh, you caught the sun.” The lad’s evident happiness infected Robbie and he found himself smiling for the first time in more days than he knew. With initial greetings over, both of them were suddenly struck with awkwardness, and James said a bit more formally, “Let’s get you home then.”

It wasn’t until they were seated in James’s car and Robbie had thrown his head back in relief, closing his eyes and inhaling the suddenly welcome familiar whiff of tobacco from James’s coat that he considered the fact that 'home' wasn’t as obvious a direction it might have been.

“Um,” said James starting the car up. “You can tell me if it’s none of my business, but is everything alright, erm, with Dr Hobson?” The unasked questions were implied: are we heading to her home? Where is she? Why are you back from a six-month sabbatical on your own after only a few weeks, new life-partner mysteriously absent?

As they pulled into the slow-moving evening traffic James voiced none of these questions, but instead filled the silence with snippets of news of Lizzie and Moody and sundry new cases while LBC radio nattered in the background. As they hit the main artery feeding off towards Oxford, James shut off the radio and punched a button that fed his MP3 player into the car’s music system and let a guitar take over the task of background noise.

_“Concierto de Aranjuez_ by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo,” he announced in lieu of actual conversation. “He went blind at the age of three and wrote all his musical compositions in Braille”. James slipped his passenger a worried side-eye when this elicited not even a grunt from his friend. Rain started to fall, heavy splats that soon turned into a deluge that obscured the outside world and turned the car into a self-contained universe.

Several miles down the road Robbie let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.  
“Laura wouldn’t appreciate it if you called her Dr Hobson to her face, lad.”  
James acknowledged this with a silent huff of amusement.

“But to answer the question you are being too polite to ask; me and her, we’re over. Talked about it. Want to stay friends. But the couples thing, it just isn’t going to work for us. So, I’ll be packing up me stuff and be out of her place by the time she comes back.”

James instantly shot him a look of surprise and sympathy before focussing back on the traffic. “I’m sorry. I mean, I’m really sorry, Robbie. I really hoped you and Laura would be happy together.”

“Yeah, me too. Could be worse. Though right now I’m struggling to see how, short of me losing an arm or a leg.”

James snorted in response and then got a contemplative look on his face.  
“Robbie, if you want, why don’t you stay with me until you find a new place? I mean, if it feels weird staying at Laura’s. There’s the spare room and we can go and fetch your mattress tomorrow. Well, we can fetch it today if you want, but with this rain it might not be a good idea.”

Robbie got a nervous side-eye glance again and once again mused about how glad exactly his best friend was to see him home. Was he glad about Robbie’s new single status? Indifferent to it? Sad for his friends falling out of love? Would it be wise for Robbie to confine himself to a living space with the one person he might want to avoid having certain conversations with?

Exhaustion rolled over him, and suddenly propriety and good sense became far less important than the need to be able to rest.

“I’d like that” Robbie said gratefully. “And I feel like I want to sleep for a year”.

Instantly a smile of utter delight lit up James’s face again. “Indian or Thai? I already have beer. Or have you been missing fish and chips?”

“They’ve got cracking fish and chips in New Zealand as it happens. Could murder a curry though.”

A couple of hours later and Robbie, showered and fed, was losing a battle with consciousness on James’s new sofa while James tried to bring him up to speed on a suspected fraud case that had turned bloody. He felt his mind melting like mist before the moon and after what seemed like aeons he woke to his arm being patted gently but persistently and James’s face swam into focus. 

“Come along, you. Bed’s ready and you’ll be more comfortable horizontal than on the couch.”

“I’m already asleep,” he protested.

“Yes, and you’ll be asleep again in two minutes. Let me help you up, c’mon.”

Robbie felt himself supported by an arm around his waist and he half staggered, half floated down a corridor until gentle strong hands were lowering him into the most comfortable pillows in the universe.

“Night, Robbie.”

And then there was blessed darkness.

The sun was high in the sky when Robbie woke again, roughly fifteen hours later if the little clock on the bedside table could be trusted. He padded through to the kitchen barefoot and a little groggy from sleep, and found the table set with plates and a mug and a piece of paper propped up in prominent view covered in James’s angular script.

_Had to go to work._  
_There’s coffee and toast and eggs, sorry not much else. I’ll go shopping on my way home this evening._  
_Laura’s spare key set is next to my laptop if you want to head over._  
_My set of spare keys are next to them so that you can get back in here._  
_Your laundry should be finished in the drier if you are looking for your clothes._

_James_

Robbie felt a wave of affection for the lad who’d managed to cycle Robbie’s six-month supply of holiday clothes (admittedly meagre and summer-light) through the washing machine before heading out to work in the morning. He popped bread under the grill and after squinting at the industrial-grade coffee machine chuckled to find that James had left post-its on the relevant bits:

_Fill this with water up to the line_

_Fill this (portafilter) to brim with coffee (in the black container)_

_Insert the portafilter into the brew head here and twist until tight_

_Switch to the wiggly lines until the light turns green,_

_Then switch to tap setting until enough espresso is produced_

_Milk in fridge obvs, sugar in bowl._  
_Use the black round cups,_  
_\- they’re the only ones that will fit under the spout._

Only James could turn coffee-making instructions into a piece of performance art. Nevertheless, the instructions worked and the toast was browning at just about the same time as fresh aromatic coffee was splooshing into the cup carefully placed below the nozzle. Robbie wasn’t in the mood for eggs, he was content with buttered toast and a cuppa, albeit quite a fancy cuppa of carefully selected and freshly ground coffee beans. After placing his used utensils in the dishwasher, he retrieved his laundry and carted it off to the spare room, dressed himself in clothes he judged warm enough to withstand the Oxford autumn air and located the spare key sets and let himself out into the day.

Forty-five minutes later he arrived at Laura’s house having had to bear the indignity of the snail’s pace of the public bus because his car was currently parked in Laura’s garage. He let himself into the silent house, and switched off the alarm using Laura’s ridiculously long medical mnemonic "Pvt. Tim Hall always argues, never tires". Essential amino acids Laura had said, but Robbie just remembered it as the one about the cranky guard.

The house smelt strange after all these weeks of emptiness in spite of James having dutifully visited every week to water the pot-plants and clear the junk mail from the letter box. Standing in the middle of a place where he had been both occupant and visitor Robbie could feel the morning’s chipper mood faltering. He sat for a while on the sofa where he and Laura had often shared glasses of wine and kisses and tried not to feel old and worn out.

“Right, get on with it,” he told himself and heaved himself off his behind and onto his feet. He located his mobile phone in Laura’s bedroom, switched off and stored these last few weeks in the bedside cabinet and booted it; then went about finding suitcases and boxes that he’d stored somewhere. By evening his back was sore and hunger was beginning to gnaw at his insides, but only the sudden squawking of his phone pulled him out of his reverie.

“Robbie? You coming home for supper?”

Home.

“James! Sorry lad, I got stuck into packing and lost track of time.”

“Just bring what you want for tonight; we can collect the main lot over the weekend when we’ve two cars and plenty of time.”

“Be there in twenty minutes. Just need to lock up again.”

Home. It was a word he hadn’t really had use for in quite a while. He’d slept more soundly in James’s spare room last night than on his first night in Laura’s place, truth be told. He’d maybe credit the jet lag for that except that the last time he’d had jet lag he’d lurched around sleepless for three days until he’d crashed face-down at his hard kitchen table, fully dressed and unfed.

Maybe he felt he was truly at home this time. Or, there was the other possibility; he was just an old and foolish man trying to detect a tell-tale trace of love in a young man’s simple offer of friendship.

He made it back in under half and hour and parked his car behind James’s in the driveway. The smell of something succulent and meaty assailed him as soon as he opened the door, and James greeted him with a wave of a cooking spoon and said “Good, it’s nearly ready.”

“It” turned out to be spaghetti bolognese laced with long melting strands of mozzarella and sharp cheddar as well as a bottle of red wine. There was a fresh tomato salad with torn basil and pepper to accompany it; all in all a fancier meal than most that Robbie had eaten in his life as a single man.

“Lad, you didn’t have to do this for me. I feel spoilt now. Be wanting this every day for me dinner.”

James just smiled beatifically. “Spag bol isn’t hard to make. Plus it isn’t every day your best friend comes back from the other side of the world.”

James immediately looked bashful, as if some words had spilled out there that maybe hadn’t been planned which raised Robbie’s hopes a little and suddenly made him remember.

“Oh! I nearly forgot. I brought you something from New Zealand.” He dashed off to his bedroom to retrieve a translucent green jade pendant carefully wrapped in tissue paper and bubble wrap and secured in stiff cardboard. “It’s called, here I wrote it down – ‘Pounamu Hei matau’, it’s a kind of arty fish-hook”.

James’s cheeks were definitely pink now, although that could have been the combination of the wine and the steamy kitchen.

“It’s beautiful Robbie, thank you.”

With a graceful movement he fastened the leather thong around his neck and the pendant nestled against his throat just below the hollow at the base of his neck.

“I thought you might like it, you being into World Music and the like,” Robbie said a little unsteadily.

“I love it, Robbie, thank you.” 

James’s eyes shone with a happiness that made Robbie’s insides hurt, so he quickly pointed out: “Food’s getting cold,” and effectively derailed that part of the conversation.

Within a couple of days they had a routine established. They both rose at roughly the same time, James taking the bathroom first before sharing coffee and toast and occasionally, soft-boiled eggs at the breakfast table, conversation scant due to the early hour, just a peaceable silence as they blinked awake in the artificial light of the kitchen. James would head out to the station and then Robbie would shower and head over to Laura’s to pack the remains of his life into boxes and water her plants and mow her lawn and take her car for a spin around the block. Much of his stuff was still in storage along with Morse’s Jaguar as he and Laura had not yet come to a decision about future living arrangements when he’d moved in with her. Had that been serendipitous or a portent? As it was, it felt simultaneously liberating and pitiful to see how little his life amounted to in the material sense.

In the evening Robbie would make the reverse journey, stopping at Sainsbury’s or Marks & Spencer’s to pick up some vegetables and protein and attempt to have supper on the table for James when he came home. Lyn had to talk him through vegetarian lasagna over the phone (too much trouble for the result if you asked him) but he’d managed a respectable roast chicken one day and a roasted red pepper & tomato soup on another. Fortunately the soup kept, as James got stuck at work long into the evening and Lewis was forced to reflect on the many nights he’d done the same to Val. The look of gratitude on James’s face when he came back home shivering and tired to hot soup and toast done the fancy way he liked (ciabatta sliced generously and drizzled with olive oil) made Robbie feel like he’d conquered the world.

On Friday James was slightly late and came home staggering under a television. “So you don’t miss the football,” was all the explanation he gave for breaking his no-TV rule; Robbie’s own TV having been donated to a local youth centre during the ill-fated Laura-merger. Robbie was struck again by his friend’s generosity. It was not the material value of the television, but the thoughtfulness that Robbie might want something other than James’s esoteric collection of books, music CDs and the Internet to keep him entertained at night. Once again foolish hope stirred in him, and once again he allowed timorousness to prevent him from having The Talk with James.

As Robbie had finished packing all that he could call his own and had cleaned every surface in Laura’s house out of a misplaced sense of guilt and well-placed sense of duty; Saturday found them shifting boxes into cars and tying Lewis’s mattress to the roof of James's car after a worried discussion about whether it was right of Robbie to remove the mattress (it was his) as it had replaced Laura’s when he had moved in with her, and this was leaving her deficient in the mattress department.

“Don’t worry Robbie, we’ll get her a new one tomorrow.”

Lewis wondered briefly when exactly they had become “we”, but nodded and locked the front door behind him.

Lewis spent the evening cramming his earthly goods and chattels into the cupboards in James’s spare room while James put together an evening meal of pies, peas and mash, a time-honoured repast from the North of Robbie’s youth, and one he suspected Hathaway had specifically researched as he doubted that Hathaway’s own tastes ran to a meal of carbs, carbs and carbs. Again he felt a flutter of hope and again his inner coward told him that mistaking Hathaway’s kind gesture, no doubt intended to soothe the pain of moving out of his ex-lover’s house, would just be the folly of an old man. 

When he went out to join James he found him bopping to something on his headphones while he added pepper and butter to the potatoes, singing a very curious melody to himself that didn’t seem to have any words. Robbie would never regard himself as an expert on anything classical, but years in the company of Morse and now James had endowed him with a certain residual knowledge. A few seconds of attention to the sound emanating from the headphones allowed him to identify the music as Mozart’s Unfinished Requiem, apparently a favourite of Hathaway’s as he’d heard it more than once back when James had been his Sergeant. How many people in the world bopped along to a two hundred and fifty year old Latin Mass for the Dead while wordlessly singing the cello line from the score while solemnly mashing potatoes? Daft lad didn't even begin to cover it. James looked up and smiled when he saw Robbie watching him and removed his headphones. “Supper’s ready,” he announced.

On Sunday they launched Operation Mattress and set out to furnish Laura with a mattress to replace the orthopaedic one now installed in James’s spare room. Lewis wasn’t entirely clear on how they had ended up agreeing to go halves on the purchase, but James was insistent that Laura be supplied with something high-end and Lewis found himself warmed by Hathaway’s loyalty to her. He felt a slight twinge of guilt as Hathaway bounced on shop-floor beds with childlike glee, that he still hadn’t told James of Laura’s theory. Lewis thought it would be unfair to let James in on that. He didn’t deserve to be dragged into their private misery, he had done nothing to deserve it. To the contrary, he’d gone out of his way to try to bring them together and ensure that they stayed that way. No, the fault had been with Robbie Lewis and the burden of that was going to stay with him. When they returned to Laura’s house, new mattress proudly sailing on top of Robbie’s car like a galleon on her maiden voyage, James noticed at least one curious neighbour twitching the curtains and he waved cheerily to her. Whatever the neighbours might think of the recent comings and goings, a new mattress being delivered could hardly rate as a particularly nefarious activity.

That night Robbie christened the new TV with a pint and the Match of the Day. James refrained entirely from making any facetious comments about football and curled up with a book on the other end of the sofa, looking up with the occasional flash of a smile at Robbie’s evident enjoyment.

Half-way through Monday morning, it became clear that Robbie had run out of things that needed doing, apart from finding a new place to live. He half-heartedly looked at some Property Listings websites James had bookmarked for him and made an appointment with an estate agent for later in the week. He also made a list of youth centres and local charitable foundations that might have a use for a volunteer; as it seemed that Moody could no longer be relied on to throw him a bone, especially as he hadn’t been expected back in Oxford until after the new year. Lyn had asked him to come up to Manchester but he wasn’t keen on the idea of being the third wheel in her house either, and he certainly had no desire to be the object of her sympathy and pity. At least he wasn’t underfoot here. He and Hathaway seemed to fit into each other’s spaces comfortably. At most he thought he might visit Manchester for a week or two. As far as living went, he didn’t see a reason to move out of Oxford. Thirty-odd years and counting, it was as much his home town as any he’d ever had.

On Tuesday Robbie paid James back by doing all their laundry and made lamb chops for supper. On Wednesday he did the groceries and tried his hand at macaroni cheese which won him a grin from Hathaway who delighted in the crunchy bits of crispy cheese and the slightly over-browned crust. On Thursday morning Lewis set off to his initial estate agent interview feeling a little bit like he was a house-husband. He’d caught himself whistling Beatles songs three times in the traffic and when he stopped at a coffee shop for a caffeine booster he saw a smile he couldn’t explain in his reflection in the glass counter-top. On Friday morning he went to water Laura’s plants and check her post and pretended not to see the neighbour who was trying to catch his attention with a dish towel. On Friday evening James came home just as Robbie was slipping a frozen pizza into the oven (there was a per week limit to Lewis's endurance for culinary creativity) and announced he had one, been ordered to take two weeks leave and could therefore help Robbie thoroughly investigate the potential of Oxford’s real estate; and two, had mentioned to Moody that Robbie would be available in a fortnight for contract work should the need arise. Lewis could have kissed him but settled for pouring him a beer.

On Saturday they went to view a Show House in a new estate development as recommended by the estate agency. The young agent in charge of showing prospective buyers around smiled brilliantly when she saw Robbie and James appear at the front door and launched into her sales patter about natural roof lighting, double glazing, fibre optic cabling for the fastest internet connections, good school catchment area and a progressive policy that ensured that this estate would be welcoming of all races, religions and lifestyle orientations. Robbie had no idea what she was on about until Hathaway gave him a triumphant grin and took his hand and led him up the stairs murmuring unsubtly, “Come along darling, let's see how big the shower is”. The Robbie of ten years ago would have shaken the hand off and rolled his eyes. The Robbie of today felt his face splitting with a smile and held on while he felt his heart try to escape his chest via his throat. He noticed that they were both not looking at each other at all.

All the houses were wrong. At first Robbie thought that maybe it was just him being difficult and unreasonable, or perhaps even subconsciously trying to thwart his own efforts to move out of James’s place. However, eventually he reckoned it couldn’t have been him after all, and that the places really must have been that bad; because James turned out to be just as critical and as the fortnight progressed Robbie began to wonder if the estate agent was offering small tributes to the demi-god of real estate that either Lewis would find something to his liking or fall down a mine-shaft, whichever came first. His smiles had become tighter and his eyes more glazed whenever Robbie turned up to view a flat or house with an immaculately presented James in tow.

The second place was too big for just Robbie, the third too small for when Lyn and her family (but mostly Hathaway) came to stay. Another’s kitchen didn’t have enough space between the work-surface and the cupboards above it to allow for a large espresso machine. Neither of them felt that it was necessary to explore why Robbie’s kitchen needed to fit a theoretical coffee maker that he technically didn’t have and was suspiciously similar in hypothetical shape and size to the one in James’s flat. It wasn’t as if the estate agent knew the difference anyway. Another flat didn’t have a front yard to allow for a quick nip out for a fag, nor did the driveway fit two cars. It was always useful to have space for an extra car even if a double garage added to the price of a property considerably. Ideally there also needed to be a small garden: a place for him to grow a few veg and a place to sit and read or play the guitar on summer evenings. Lewis knew that he ought to be feeling frustrated by the whole thing, but if he was going to be honest he was having far too much fun watching James survey each estate with a critical eye and then elaborate on its shortcomings.  
By the end of the two weeks of James’s holidays they had seen nine houses, seven flats and a tiny manor on the edge of the city that Hathaway had pronounced perfect but for the fact that neither of them was a millionaire with a secret offshore hedge fund to draw upon. If Hathaway felt any regret at spending his precious time-off trudging around empty houses on a futile hunt he didn’t show it. He said, “It’s not like you have to move out by a certain date or anything, so you shouldn’t make any hasty decisions.”

Robbie thought that sounded like excellent advice.

On Monday James returned to work and on Tuesday Robbie was asked by Moody to help out on what appeared to be a serial poisoning case. The Great House-Hunting Quest was relegated to the occasional search on one of their laptops when one of them got bored with whatever they were doing.

When winter arrived in the early days of December with sleet and sub-zero temperatures for the first time; their routine had changed slightly. To accommodate the fact that often both of them had to get into work first thing, one or both of them showered before bed rather than in the morning. Whoever made it to the kitchen first started the espresso machine. Whoever made it home in the evening first decided whether supper would be cooked or ordered in, depending on factors such as what was in the fridge, what time it was, and when the other was expected to arrive. Dinner remains were cleared by a mutually agreed on team effort and then they would repair to watch the telly (Robbie) or read or pick out a tune on the guitar (James). On Tuesday evenings Hathaway would head out for band practise, on Saturday mornings they would head over to Laura’s to clean and tidy garden and home. On Monday evenings Robbie would watch QI and James would appear to read but answer too suspiciously high a number of the questions to be truly focussed on the tome in front of him.

A week before Christmas they both received an email from Laura saying she would be returning the day before Christmas Eve and would like to pick up her keys then please. Robbie felt himself freezing.

“I’ll go and get her,” said James noticing Robbie's expression, “in case you’re both not feeling up to seeing each other just yet.”


	2. Chapter 2

“James! I didn’t expect you to come and fetch me” said Laura after James had ambushed her coming though the Arrivals gates.

“Course I came to fetch you. That was always the plan from the start, remember?” said James giving her a hug that she returned with surprise.

“Things changed though,” she said a little stiffly.

“Not us being friends, I hope,” he answered with a shy smile and one of his little head bobs.

Laura felt herself thawing when she read nothing but sincerity and affection in James’s eyes.

“Robbie would have come too, but, well, he wasn’t sure you’d want to see him just yet and he's on a case today. He’s been visiting your place each week to keep the garden up and do some light cleaning. So you’ll be pleased to know that the ferns and palms are all alive.”

James could feel her eyes scrutinising him as he lobbed her suitcase and bags into the boot of his car and opened the passenger door for her.

“Visiting my place? How long ago did he move out?” her brow furrowed.

“Um. Straight away when he got back from New Zealand.”

“How did he manage to find a new place so quickly? Unless, wait. He moved in with you, didn’t he?”

James shrugged. “Yes, under the circumstances it made more sense seeing as he would be looking for a new place.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “So he moved all his belongings into a shared two-bedroomed flat rather than stay in a whole house where all his stuff already was? That kind of making more sense?” 

James gave her a puzzled if slightly strained look.

“Sorry, I’m being a cow,” she said. “Ignore me. So has he found one?”

James looked utterly bewildered.

“One what?”

“Um. A place to live?”

“Oh. No. We looked at a few places but nothing suitable yet.”

Laura, trained by her profession to be a very keen observer of details, noticed the ‘we’. She also surmised from the complete lack of any tension or embarrassment in James’s voice and posture that the ‘we’ was entirely unconscious and in no way referred to a new about-to-be-revealed romance. It was clearly just a new iteration of their already long-established habit of doing almost everything together and not really noticing it. 

It was also clear from his highly-specific obliviousness to all questions about Robbie’s living arrangements that the concept of Lewis moving out was one that James had blocked from his brain.

“Robbie hasn’t said a word to you about it, has he?” she said.

“About what? A new house?” James sounded confused. “Oh, you mean him and you?”

Laura nodded.

“It’s none of my business really. I thought that he would tell me if he really wanted to, but otherwise I didn't ask. Well, I’m just sorry. I really hoped you would be happy.”

She smiled wryly to herself. Nope, evidently not a single word. 

“Oh, and there’s home-made fish pie and cottage pie in your freezer, and I put some milk and eggs in the fridge, and if you want to come over the day after tomorrow – well, we’ve both only got the one day off so it’s nothing fancy this year, but I hope you'll come to spend Christmas Day with us. Robbie's getting good at roast chicken.”

“James, you’re a sweetheart; but I’m not ready for that yet. In any case I’m planning on sleeping off the jet lag for the next 48 hours.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Just so you know, I’ll be asking again in a week. And the week after that.”  
As they pulled up in front of her house Laura kissed him on the cheek and touched his face lightly. “You’re a good man, James Hathaway.”


	3. Chapter 3

Christmas Eve arrived extra cold and wet, and by the time James headed home night had already subjugated the grey world. There was yellow light gleaming from the windows of his home though and he was greeted by warm air and the heavenly aroma of beef and pastry when he opened his front door. 

“Got us some Cornish pasties on the way home before the market closed,” said Robbie uncapping a bottle of ale and handing it over.

“Cheers,” James seated himself on the sofa with a groan and let his head fall backwards and his eyes close in utter exhaustion. When he opened them again, Robbie was observing him with a gentle smile.

“Got you something too. Y’know, for Christmas. Only small, mind,” he said handing James a small wrapped package. James unwrapped the present with undue care and grinned when he uncovered a beautiful silver Art Nouveau portable ashtray.

“This is perfect, thank you Robbie,” he said, sounding uncommonly shy all of a sudden considering they’d been friends for well over a decade now. His delighted smile was enough to assure Robbie that this had been a good find. “I got something for you too.”

‘Something’ turned out to be an iPod filled with a compilation of hits from the late 60s through the 70s, many of which Robbie hadn’t heard in decades since record players went the way of the dinosaur, and he was suddenly flooded with memories from his youth and early days with Val. Robbie got a nervous smile from Hathaway when he looked up at him which told him just how much time James had put into getting this gift together. Robbie’d never been the most eloquent of men, but he’d usually been able to string a coherent sentence together. “Lad,” was all he managed now and he grasped James’s hand. This time, he noticed, they were looking at each other.

“Merry Christmas, Robbie,” James whispered.

“Merry Christmas,” Robbie replied. 

The timer on the oven chimed at them, breaking the spell and announcing that supper was ready.

“If you like I can take you to Midnight Mass later.”

James nodded, but after supper when he and Robbie were on the sofa listening to some of Robbie’s new-old music with Robbie adding bits of trivia about tracks as they came up, James found himself too content and drowsy to do more than idly contemplate going outside again.

“I think I’ll stay here with you instead,” he murmured before he fell asleep among the cushions. Robbie sat for a long time just watching James breathe.

On New Year’s Eve Hathaway was ankle-deep in a field of mud, grateful for Wellington Boots and Thermos flasks of hot, sweet tea. Laura emerged from the SOCOs white tent that had been thrown up to prevent further rain damage to the site of the dead body and greeted him with an “Inspector Hathaway” and a smile. He gave her a slight bow in return with a “Doctor Hobson” and a matching grin. Her conversation, however, was limited to “Blunt force trauma, but the rain has washed away any obvious contaminants so I won’t know more until I get him on the table, time of death is going to be hard with the cold and the rain, but I think last night between six and ten”; “my neighbour wants to know what your rates are for your gardening and general maintenance services,” and finally, “Not yet, James. But thanks.”

At midnight Robbie and James clinked celebratory glasses of expensive beer-barrel-seasoned whiskey together and went back to watching the QI marathon on TV and not-reading a book respectively.

By February, Robbie’s short-term contract with Thames Valley was up and Moody said he would renew it only if and when case loads necessitated more people on the job. With Oxford's criminal element apparently on leave, Lewis resumed laundry and cooking duties again, and reminded himself that he should get back to house-hunting in between trying to perfect Nigella Lawson’s ‘risi e bisi’ which he privately thought was bit fussy for rice with a bit of peas and ham chucked in. He made an appointment with an all new estate agent and was a bit surprised when Hathaway seemed a bit cool and withdrawn when he informed James he was heading out to check apartments again later in the week.

It was about a week later while Lewis was doing the groceries and idly looking for something that would coax a smile out of Hathaway who'd been out of sorts since the new estate agent had been mentioned, that Robbie found himself face to face with Laura Hobson in front of the frozen peas section. She gave him a crooked smile and said, “Hello, stranger. Peace? I'll buy you a coffee.”

Over a Caramel Mochachino frappé with an extra double-espresso shot (because Lewis was still feeling slightly petty about the whole thing) he and Laura eyed each other warily.

“So,” said Laura surveying the coffee-monstrosity in front of Lewis, “you and James seem to be settled in quite cosily together.”

Lewis bristled. “It's not exactly like that, and you know it. I'm still looking for a place to live. Got a viewing tomorrow morning, as a matter of fact.”

“You never did talk to him, did you? About us, and about you two.”

“No, and I’m not going to either. You know Hathaway, Laura. If he thought he was in any way the cause of our breakup, he’d never forgive himself. He’d feel guilty for the rest of his life over something he hasn’t done, and I won’t have that.”

“Okay, that's fair enough. But it doesn't mean you can't tell him what he means to you. As I am pretty sure you remember my telling you before, people don't know what you feel about them until you tell them,” said Laura.

“I don't know that I'm going to tell him that either. I've no reason to think he feels the same way. It would just make things awkward again. Maybe even ruin everything. Nothing worse than a stupid old man who doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut and his feelings to himself.”

“Old?” Laura gaped at him.

“If I'm being honest, I always thought even you might think that I was too old for you; and there's even more of a gap with me and Hathaway.”

“Even me?” Laura sounded indignant.

“Ah, give over, lass. You know what I mean. I could be his father. I'm retired. It would be absurd to think he could want me. If he's even into men in that way.”

“Jury's still out on that, is it?” Laura asked.

“Mm. Pretty sure Hathaway knows which way he is. It's just something he never wanted to talk about. He shut me down the one time he pretty much dared me to ask. Doesn't seem to date much either, so...” he shrugged.

“Well, maybe none of that matters. What I can tell you is that since you've been back, which I should point out roughly correlates with your moving in with Hathaway, James has been sunny and outgoing and altogether a joy to be around.”

“Hathaway? Sunny!?” Robbie sounded incredulous.

“Believe it or not, yes. Even his sergeant mentioned to me recently that he'd been the soul of positivity for months. James is happy, and you live in his flat. The two things are likely to be related.”

“Still doesn't mean that he's interested in me in that way.”

“I still think you should tell him.”

“And I’ll end up embarrassing myself and losing him. No thank you.”

“You know that funny little smile of his? Blink and you’ve missed it?”

“Yeah.”

“You know you’re the only person he’s looking at when he does it, right?”

Lewis scowled at her. “Am not”.

Laura gave Lewis a resigned shrug and said, “Fine. It's not up to me anyway, but I think you're wrong about losing him and wrong to not tell him how you feel.”


	4. Chapter 4

It had been another bad day. Lewis had spent much of the day looking at one disappointing house after another. He was finding the whole process very bewildering and wished he had James there to cast his eye on the prospective places as the lad seemed to have an instinctual ability to see the strengths or weaknesses of buildings. In an attempt to cheer Hathaway up he’d gone to the trouble of making macaroni cheese again and paired it with a green salad and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. James looked morose all through dinner though and eventually Robbie couldn’t contain himself any more.

“Alright lad, let’s have at it. Something’s got you bothered and it isn’t going to go away with both of us sitting here in silence. What’s going on?”

James looked distraught and hesitated before pulling himself together and answered, “It’s all the house hunting you’ve been doing again. You’re clearly unhappy, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I’ve made you feel so unwelcome here that you’ve had to think about moving out.”

“What?” Robbie was at a loss. “Lad, you’ve never made me feel unwelcome for a moment. Is that what this is all about? James, if I’ve been peevish it’s because all the bloody house hunting is a pain in the arse, pardon me French. It’s never been you at all.”

“But then, why are you moving out?” James asked looking a little better.

“Can’t stay in your spare room forever, man. I’m taking up your space and to be honest I haven’t even seen most of the stuff I own in months. Some of it in years. It’s all in boxes and suitcases or storage, and I’ve finally gotten to the point when I’d like to unpack some of them and see me own things again.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’m sorry that was so stupid of me,” said James. “Well, I hope you know you’ll always be welcome here,” he trailed off sadly. “It won’t be the same here without you. Oh, I'm to tell you Moody said he would give you a ring some time this week. It seems like there’s a new contract he’d like to discuss with you if you are available.”

“Cheers,” said Robbie. “It’ll be good to get back in harness, so long as he doesn’t mind me working around a bit of house hunting.”


	5. Chapter 5

Laura came striding up the field as soon as she spotted Lewis entering the cordoned-off area.

“Doctor Hobson,” he greeted her.

“Detective Inspector Lewis” she returned, impeccably formal and polite. Then she pulled him aside and hissed at him as discreetly as possible, “What the hell have you done to James? You’ve broken him again.”

“What?” Lewis felt himself flailing internally, unable to keep up with this new thing that he was being accused of.

“He's miserable, and the only possible cause is you.”

“Oh, thank you very much. I haven’t done anything,” Lewis protested. 

Laura gave him a look.

“Honest,” Lewis continued, “we even had a nice chat the other day, cleared the air. Poor sod thought he'd made me feel unwelcome because I was looking for a house again.”

“And you said what to him exactly?” Laura was staring at him with thunderclouds on her brow.

“I told him the truth; that I’d enjoyed staying with him and hadn’t felt unwelcome for a minute. Just that I couldn’t stay in his spare room forever. For one thing, I can’t fit me whole life into a single cupboard, even if it is quite a big one. For another, he deserves his own space back. What?”

Laura took a deep breath and gave him a look she usually reserved for small children and said, “Has it occurred to you that the reason why James is miserable and you suffer from a terminal inability to find a suitable house is because neither of you can stand the thought of your moving out?”

Laura yanked off her rubber gloves and then continued; “Just as an experiment, ask Hathaway to buy the house with you. I'd put good money on both our problems being resolved in rapid order.”

Lewis gaped at her.

“I mean it, Robbie. There's been enough self-sacrifice from both of you to last a lifetime now. I'm tired of living around self-denying martyrs. It's not a good look on either of you, and frankly it's wearing on my last nerve. Now, about the deceased, it's our old friend blunt force trauma again, but in this case it looks natural in as much as it was definitely a fall causing him to hit his head against that rock that did the damage. What made him fall is your job, but given the marks around his wrists and the position of his arms, his hands were bound at the time. So someone else was there and tried to remove any evidence of their presence afterwards.”


	6. Chapter 6

Among the terms of the new contract issued to people like Robbie was a clause that overtime was to be avoided under any circumstance “unless you’re literally hanging from a ledge at the time, heheh,” Moody had cautioned when they’d signed all the paperwork. As a result Lewis was required to down tools at 5.30pm and go home. For the first time in his life Lewis was glad to be out of the door as soon as the clock hand tipped over. He’d been racking his brains all day about what to cook Hathaway tonight; something quick that the lad would like, something that would herald how important this was to Robbie. Something to distract Robbie from the fact that he felt like he was about to take his life into his hands. After some panicking in the M&S meat aisle, he finally decided on steaks and baby potatoes and added some whipping cream to the basket so he could make Irish Coffees for afters. If Hathaway hadn’t thrown him out by then, of course. Not that Hathaway would ever throw him out. He was far too kind and polite for that. No, what would happen would be that James would politely stammer out a self-deprecating rejection dressed up as an apology, and then the shutters would come down preventing any further real interaction. Robbie had seen the shutters fall twice in the ten years or so of knowing Hathaway. It had not been entirely Robbie’s fault on either occasion but better choices could have been made both times that might have prevented certain consequences that had involved physical damage to James and who knows what sort of mental anguish. Forcing these thoughts aside, Lewis paid for his shopping, went home and rolled up his sleeves.

By 7pm Lewis had prepared a layered tomato salad, had the potatoes par-boiled, drained and ready to be finished when needed, and the steaks waiting for James’s appearance before he did anything with them.

By 7.15pm Lewis was panicking slightly because Hathaway had not yet arrived home, nor had he responded to Lewis’s text message saying that he was doing supper tonight. 

By 7.30pm Lewis was pouring himself a second neat whiskey when the headlights from James’s car lit up the windows and came to a halt outside.

Hathaway’s eyes immediately swept the room taking in all the details of the fancier-than-usual food, the open whiskey bottle and in the centre of it all, Robbie Lewis.

“Is everything… Robbie — are you okay? What’s wrong?” James’s eyes suggested that Lewis looked as panicked as he felt.

“Relax, lad. I’m fine. I just… we need to talk. I’ve something to say.”

“Oh.” Hathaway looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. “I think I know what this is about.”

“I doubt that. Sit down, lad. And stop looking like that. It’s nothing bad, I promise.” Lewis put a glass of wine in front of James, put his glass of whiskey back on the counter and poured himself a glass of wine and came to sit down opposite James.

“You can say no at any time, and I won’t be offended,” Lewis continued. “I know I’m a good bit older than you.”

Hathaway tried to interrupt here with a disavowal. Lewis held up his hand.

“No. This needs to be said plainly. No skirting around the issue. I’m older than you, but you’ve become the best friend that maybe I’ve ever had. Actually, no maybes about it. Being here with you has been the best thing I can remember in a very long while. But I can’t live here forever, it’s not big enough for the two of us.”

James started to look stricken again. Still, stricken was better than shuttered. Lewis took a deep breath and summoned all the courage he had and put his hand over James’s.

“The thing is, I can’t bear to think of not being here with you. So I was hoping you would agree to an alternative; come with me. Find a place that suits us both and come with me.”

James appeared to have stopped breathing completely and he stared at Robbie with the roundest eyes Lewis had ever seen on him. James once again looked around the room, took in the expensive bottle of wine, the steaks and Robbie’s hand over his own.

“Um,” James said, “um, just so I’m crystal clear here, you’re sort of proposing to me?”

“Aye, if you’ll have me,” Lewis found he was having breathing problems of his own. He scraped together what was left of his courage and made himself look into Hathaway’s face. There was no mistaking the little smile starting to take shape there and the sudden joy in James’s eyes.

“You’re proposing to me before you’ve ever even tried to kiss me once?” The little smile was overtaking his entire face and Lewis didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so beautiful before.

“Give over, lad. I’ve gone about it all backwards I know, but I promise you from now on we’ll do all the kissing you want,” he picked up Hathaway’s hand and kissed the fingers just below the knuckles. “You’ll have to be patient with me, mind. This is all new to me.”

“May I?” James whispered as he reached up to gently touch Robbie’s face. Robbie nodded almost spellbound with anticipation. James gently touched Robbie’s mouth with his finger and then leant in to kiss him softly and chastely. Robbie felt himself quiver and then he pulled James closer and cupped the back of his head in his hand. James kissed him again, this time asking for entrance and when Robbie opened up to him explored him slowly and reverently until they both had to come up for air.

“Just so there’s no mistaking,” said James, “the answer is yes I’ll go with you, and yes I will find a place that suits us both with you.”

Then there were more kisses. Hundreds of them, until Hathaway announced regretfully that he was starving and Lewis got up to get the steaks on. Robbie had never cooked quite like this before, with James alternately dancing around the kitchen table singing snippets of old jazz songs and then cuddling up behind Robbie and encircling him in his arms.

_“I know how Columbus felt_  
_Finding another world,_  
_Kiss me once, then once more_  
_What a dunce I was before,_  
_What a break, for Heaven’s sake_  
_How long has this been going on?”_

Lewis felt that the lyrics of this song were being deliberately aimed at him somehow, but considering the sheer unadulterated happiness on James’s face, he decided to let it go. 

They were tipsy by the time they went to bed, wine and whiskey and kisses on their breath. Lewis was simultaneously terrified and thrilled when James climbed into his bed and curled up next to him. James had promised that they would take it as slow as Robbie needed, but Robbie suddenly felt he needed to explore James’s face and neck and body. They were both going to be useless at work tomorrow, but tonight was going to be filled with hands and lips and sweat and delirium. When James was spread out underneath him, breathless and staring up at him as though he were the most precious thing in his whole world, Robbie Lewis, world-weary atheist, felt for a moment what it was to be a god.


End file.
